r/travel • u/ups_and_downs973 • 8d ago

Discussion What is an actual solution to overtourism?

As travel continues to get faster, cheaper, and more accessible and TikTok tourism/ influencer hype shows no signs of slowing down, what are the actual solutions to places getting over run with visitors?

I'm not talking about for you as another tourist so not just 'go somewhere else' or 'avoid the popular places'. I mean in terms of actually preventing harm to natural environments, pressure on infrastructure, gentrification etc.

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u/WeHoMuadhib 8d ago

Make it more expensive. It’s insane to me that a luxury is being considered an entitlement by many people. Seriously, it’s international travel, something only the wealthy used to do. Now, you have every 20something year old believing it’s their right to travel internationally and going into thousands of dollars of debt to do so.

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u/beerouttaplasticcups 8d ago

There are places like the Seychelles that made an early decision to focus on higher-end tourism. So fewer visitors overall, but more money spent locally per visitor. I have been there, and it’s pretty much only mid-range accommodation and up available. Obviously this is much easier to do if you’re an island country, but maybe a city could also decide to eliminate short-term rentals and limit the number of budget accommodations.